 Hello, everyone. Good evening. This is City of Portland's workshop. It's not a normal city council meeting. We are going to workshop the cleaning election. I think we did started working on it last week and today we are going to see what we can get before we put it on the agenda. The mayor is going to join us online. She's going to try to join us online. She's traveling. In her absence, I'm stepping in for her as mayor. I'm going to hand it over to you so that you can walk us through. I think our colleague Anna also have two other questions that she wants us to look into. Thank you, Anna, for bringing that forward. Mayor Pro Tem Ali and members of the council, Jim Katsufikis from the law firm of Perkins Thompson, Brandon Mazers here from Perkins Thompson as well. We've been assisting the city council to try to meet its obligations to put together a clean elections ordinance under its charter obligation and we presented a draft ordinance last week. When we did that, it must be pressing a button for volume here or it's like a spaceship but I'm not quite sure. Talking to the mic. Checking one, two, three. Hello. Okay, how's this? All right. I understand. I've heard the results when it does. So there were just a few issues that we'd initially talked about resolving here tonight at workshop before we come back with a draft for first read next week and that would be really talking about the methodology and the numbers to increase the number of qualifying contributions and to reduce the amounts distributed to candidates whether they are in contested race or an uncontested race. So that was what we initially had talked about. Also, there were a couple of other issues that needed to be resolved such as who do you write the check to with a qualifying contribution? Is it to the candidate or to the city? And also when it comes to business entities that are substantially under foreign influence, what percentages constitute ownership by a foreign business? 1% investment of 5% if two or more. Those are the numbers used by Seattle in their ordinance and also are being proposed to be used by San Diego in a memo. But since then there are some additional questions that have been raised regarding the total amount of funding through the city budget each year. Whether there would be a supplemental funding round say I believe up to four have been suggested whether the qualifying period would start for future elections on June 1 and then also a question about whether there should be a pro rata reduction in numbers if the budget amount is insufficient for the number of candidates who decide to go clean elections. So those are I think all the range of questions that are before the council for some resolution this evening. You can't take a vote. I understand that we're just looking for some consensus so that when Brandon and I go back to amend this draft ordinance to get it back before you for next Monday night that we have a better idea of what that should contain. So with that, Brandon has a proposal on the money side, the distribution side and the qualifying contributions. And I know Councilor Tavaro has one as well. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to start there and look at those numbers and see where the council lands. Thank you. So I guess as an initial matter would it be helpful for me to share my screen with those proposals for the council and for those with Zoomer? May I provide, yeah. So we'll walk you through sort of the three proposals that we put out. I also have Councilor Tavaro's alternate that was sent to us last night or this morning which isn't the most up to date but might give us some at least baseline. So what's in front of you right now is what we originally brought you last week with seed money limits, qualifying contributions, the amount distributed and some key dates that were discussed. If you remember we had proposed seed money period, the max being $5,000 for mayor, $2,000 for an at-large city council, $1,000 for a district city council, $1,000 for school board and $500 at-large and then a $500 district school board. Qualifying contributions, so that was with a number of $5 contributions that you need to collect to qualify as a certified candidate. Initially we had proposed for mayor 300, at-large city council 150, city council district 60, at-large school board and school board district 60 as well. And then the distributed amount which we did include a pro-ration came from the main citizens for clean elections original proposal but we proposed it as one distribution, 120 for mayor, 32 for an at-large city council, 12 for a district city council, nine for a school board at-large and 4,500 for a district school board. Uncontested, as a starting point we just cut that number in half. That was our basic rationale there. I think we shared at the last workshop, Santa Fe does I think one-tenth of what's proposed for contested races for uncontested. And then the key dates which put some limitations on us in this original proposal as well as the future proposals that we wanted to focus on. The charter requires that nomination petitions be made available 127 days prior and I can zoom in if that's helpful. We have proposed for this year at least that qualifying papers and declaration of intent forms which is discussed further in the ordinance be made available that same day. First day nomination petitions can be turned in 85 days prior to the election. That's in the charter which would be August 14th of this year where we propose that the same that same day be for the qualifying papers. Seed money report would be due the next day. The last day that nomination papers could be turned in is August 28th or 71 days prior. That's in the charter as well. And then we proposed that the qualifying papers to be a certified clean elections candidate be the same day. And then based on feedback from the clerk's office with terms of going through all of the certifications and nomination papers and having to request checks from the Treasury Department they needed at least a week. So that's where the September 8th that following Friday came into play which may come into some of the discussion for both our proposal where we show two rounds of funding and Councilor Travaros because although the clerk's office is administering this sort of form of checking on the nomination papers, checking on the qualifying contributions it's the Treasury that has to issue the checks and the time there based on the city clerk's feedback is needs at least a few days from the from the check request. So what we what we did is we came up with three different proposals. The first proposal that we came is sort of the baseline for the other two and that is to increase the qualifying contribution numbers and lower the distributed amounts. So the seed money in this proposal has stayed the same from our original proposal. We have increased the qualifying contributions as seen on the screen. For Mayor it is increased to 500, City Council at large 250, City Council District 100, School Board at large 75, School Board District 50. So you'll notice that actually the School Board for District went down slightly from the original 60. Some of this came from the feedback from Councillor Rodriguez where he wanted there was some suggestions to see a little bit more spread between School Board and City Council. And looking at the numbers 500 it's sort of a rough 100 signatures per district and then we sort of tallied from there in terms of our our logic. Again we didn't we this could you could come up with a billion different proposals for this this is sort of the starting point for tonight's discussion and consensus. We then lowered the distributed amount. There was general consensus we felt amongst the council last week to lower the amount distributed. We sort of started with the Mayor's race. Councillor Rodriguez, Councillor Ali sort of suggested under 100. I think Councillor Rodriguez suggested you know somewhere between 70 and 80 so we sort of took the middle and started at at $75,000 and then roughly prorated that down further. So you'll see at large would be 25,000 City Council District 10, School Board 5 and School Board District would be three. A point to note both for the contested and uncontested as you get further down the ballot the Delta sort of becomes a little harder to to do a exact probation so although we sort of tried to do a third it became a little bit harder sort of for the School Board and the District Council. The the uncontested was shrunk even further so we didn't just do the half we we did that sort of a third-ish number so it would be 25,000 for Mayor City Council at large 10,000 City Council District 4,000 at large School Board 2,000 and then 1500 for School Board District and again we played with that a little bit it's roughly a third. Key dates in this sort of initial baseline proposal do not change no multiple funding everything is released at the same time on September 8th. Our second proposal is for discussion purposes is you increase the seed money limits, increase the qualifying contributions and lower the distributed amounts and in our associate memo with our proposals part of the conversation was trying to get money into candidate's hands earlier based on councilor Travara's points. We were grappling with that and the required timing in the charter so one of the thoughts we had was if you increase seed money limits it does a number of things one it gets money into the hands of candidates sooner it's still being proposed to just be at a hundred dollar maximum per donation it then allows it does supplement the fund slightly more because it's proposed that seed money contributions would be deducted from any final distribution from the fund and if we do keep the proration in the ordinance and that candidate decides to back if it's prorated and they decide there's not enough money they could back out of being a clean elections candidate keep the seed money as because they haven't violated any other campaign rules as their initial traditional campaign funding and move forward as a traditional candidate as a worst-case scenario. So again we we kept the increased qualifying contributions from the baseline proposal one kept the distributed amount same as the baseline one and increased the seed money limits again key dates do not change in proposal two those stay the same with one distribution date and then finally alternate proposal three is trying to incorporate multiple rounds of funding what we proposed here is two rounds of funding again the seed money we reverted back to the original but again you can push and pull any of these sort of proposals into what the council likes kept qualifying contributions at the higher level kept the contest kept the total amount distributed at that lower amount and then the key dates have changed slightly um so some of this came with our conversations with the city clerk's office about that check writing and the checks issuing from the treasury um so what we proposed is two rounds the first round would be if the candidate turns in their paperwork on that first day that they can their nomination papers and their qualifying contribution papers um on that august 14th city clerk then would process all of those and issue that check on um august 25th and they what we've done here is roughly given candidates one third of their funding um at that first round of funding with the the restrictions on the chart or what you'll notice is it only gives you an additional two weeks or so from that september eighth date um but it was the best that we could come up with in in discussing with with the city clerk uh and then the rest of the funding would come on september on september eighth um and then it would be uh either the 50 000 on top of for mayor or the full 75 000 um again if the charter amendment uh changes those dates this is a little bit more flexible but given those restrictions this is what we thought was reasonable and knowing that um once you're into that september october um trying to do multiple rounds given the sort of week to two-week turnaround time for checks becomes tough on the certification uh and the the request from the checks for the for the treasury so those were our three proposals for for this evening's workshop um for discussion purposes i can share what we've got last i'm not sure how to proceed for councillor Trevara's options but happy to share my screen with what we got last night with proposal do i think um is that a is that all right with you he can share that and i can kind of present what we have here um that would be good so um i have i've kind of updated my proposal um right up to the last minute here and so what um Brandon is sharing is what is before you in paper form as um alternate proposal number two um and there's one revision to the timeline that he will be able to share which is the final date on the timeline um which in the paper version in front of you has been changed to october 15th um other than that what he won't be able to show you is what you have also have before you as alternative proposal number one but um i can talk about the you know just sort of general framework of this i think the big key differences between um this proposal and what we've been looking at um basically there are three one being that the these proposals have multiple rounds of funding they have an initial uh round of funding when the candidate turns in an initial requirement of checks and then they have subsequent rounds of funding that um that apply subsequently and in proposal number one there are up to four supplemental payments in proposal number two there are three um the the maximum amount that they can potentially receive stayed the same from uh the proposal that we were looking at at our last workshop and the kind of general direction as was noted that we were going in in our last workshop was um in the direction of like more uh qualifying contributions and less total distribution but my sense was that with the rounds of funding that kind of fixes that disproportion because if you look at the state system it's actually fairly typical that um candidates only reach one or two or you know they don't get all the way to the end of the levels of funding so this um you know it you wouldn't end up in a situation where a candidate can you know collect almost enough and then qualify for nothing you know they're able to kind of have a campaign that works for or have funding that works for the right size of their campaign um the other thing was I and I've been you know I think you you know I've been mentioning this wanting to get money into the hands of candidates earlier um I kind of looked at some data from campaigns and found that you know candidates were spending like significant money even before July even before June 1 of you know the last the last mayoral race so um having it not until you know September or even late August I think is problematic to the viability of people wanting to participate in the program so what I have suggested is that in lieu of um well that for subsequent years we put forward a charter change that would allow the nomination timeline to move up so that we didn't have to wait as long for candidates to turn in their nomination papers and qualify as candidates but we can't do that for June because um we don't have enough time and there's a requirement on turnout for an election um so in lieu of being able to do that I propose that we develop an affidavit that candidates sign um that they're personally responsible in the case that they don't end up qualifying as a candidate um that they would have to repay the funds and that on the earliest day that we disperse the funds they are only dispersed an amount equal to the uncontested amount because we won't know whether they're contested or not um but at least that would get them something to get them started um so you'll see I've proposed that first deadline in the timeline as July 17th um I think so I think um you know in terms of the overall funding these numbers are based on the averages of the winning campaigns in recent years um so this is like what this is what these seats are raising and spending basically so my sense is that it's important that when we think about the overall number that it be data informed like that because in order for this program to work we need participants and if if candidates don't perceive that there's going to be enough money to be able to compete then they're not going to participate um so I think is there any um those are the major structural oh the other the other big one is that um I've decoupled the timeline of qualifying contributions from nomination papers so that candidates can get an earlier start um in I've proposed that they start um on June 1 and at that time they would need to sign a declaration of intent form um I have some experience collecting these myself and it's a very slow going process there's a lot of paperwork involved um if you're doing it door to door um I mean for me I would average about two per hour so um I think allotting that extra amount of time is going to be crucial to candidates to be able to um to make it and be participants in the program uh those are the major structural changes um I put in my memo some a few other things I think that um realistically we ought to think about upping the budget for this um because we have a responsibility to create a program that is going to be successful and that um is viable for the candidates um so I think that is essentially um my as simplified of a of a complex program um as I can make it but if anybody has any questions um I'd be happy to hear it I think I don't know um I can look for you know guidance but I think generally we're looking for what's going to constitute a first read at this point um and still we would have time you know to make amendments at the time that we we vote on it so thank you Anna I'm going to look at our colleagues and see if anybody have any question for Anna or let me look online no we're not taking public comment Councillor Foni. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem um just a couple of quick questions um I was trying to read through to see if it was outlined and just really more for the benefit of um the public so can people give both qualifying contributions and seed money? I believe so I don't know that it's specifically outlined that is the way that the state program works and I should mention too I I did have an opportunity to meet with the clerk's office um just about an hour ago um and um Ashley is out right now so I was able to meet with Paul just I wanted to make sure that their office you know at least got a first um site of what I was going to present tonight and um they kind of mentioned to us a couple of things one is one was with regard to um the date of the seed money report and we talked about maybe that a more workable date for that might be um the time at which they um I'm trying to remember I think it was the the first day that um they turn in qualifying papers so I anyway that's something that might change but yeah okay um and then the second question is would the seed money also for this proposed timeline would the seed money and qualifying contributions both be able to start being collected as of June 1st? Yes so both at the same time yeah I think that's the only questions I have thank you thank you Councillor Fonye. I have a question from councillors um Anna I have a question for you in the presentation that um Brandon made I think on the 10th option uh they cited uh June 30th as the 13th date on the timeline um when people should take out papers. June 30th um for my proposal is the day that nomination papers become available but June 1st would be when um clean elections would be able to start. So yours is June 1st? June 1st yeah okay and the S is June 30th. I believe so I believe there's um coincides with nomination papers. Yeah we've uh couple points we've coincided the the release of the qualifying papers and the nomination papers on the same date partly due to the charter uh but also trying to factor in and I think we'd have to do a little bit of calendaring. The fund won't be established yet um so June 1st for at least this year may not be workable from just having the fund and this ordinance passed in time for a June 1st start date. We haven't actually calendar that so. Well I was that actually was one of my points too um we won't have put the money into the account yet um because we won't have the budget in place until July 1 so that will be um that will be an issue. But um if they're just collecting the checks to qualify I mean it's not the disbursement date the disbursement the first potential disbursement date would be July 17th um so I think as long as they're just collecting and not turning in yet I don't know that that wouldn't. Yeah I think that's probably true I think that gets into the conversation of who the checks are made out to as well that we need some some guidance on uh whether it's to the candidates and it goes into a candidates fund and one checks cut over to the city or directly to the city's fund where they may be coming in to try to turn in those checks that to a fund that doesn't exist I don't I that's more a treasury question than us but we want to just make sure that the policy works from a procedural standpoint. Yeah I mean mice the way that it works at the state level is that they um are made out to the main clean election fund and um I think maybe it depends on when they're going to be deposited right which um you would want to have an account open for when they're deposited um but that wouldn't necessarily I don't know know they wouldn't necessarily need to deposit them on that date if they're just still just collecting I'll cancel it. And just to confirm and you you intend then the seat money would then um written out to the candidate those the five dollar contributions will be written on to the city. Correct yeah to the clean election fund. Castle Diane. Thank you. Thank you. I apologize if this seems like a simplistic request but I'd really appreciate an exhibit of the actual documents that are required to be filled out by a candidate because I know Councilman Chavarro and I had an off offsite conversation and one of the challenges to clean election for those who've been in it and those who were in it and then got out has been the complexity of the documentation. I think we spent a lot of energy about distribution of citizen money to potential candidates but I think a neglected area of concern is the bureaucratic activity that's required of a candidate and their supporter in acquiring the legitimacy to make application to that fund pool. So I don't know if it's appropriate in advance of the next meeting on this question but I think it would be helpful to this councilor to actually examine the documents that are required to be completed by the candidate as part of this process because I think it's daunting to someone who was listening this evening if this is their first exposure to clean elections when Councilor Chavarro and I know she has a lot of diligence could only accomplish two per hour. You know that's I don't think I would hope that we could do more in an hour. It's so that's why this question I mean I did it once and I related to the councilor. I mean I needed a staff person at my hip to get it done and there was always a fear a gnawing lingering fear that we had made an error and if you show up a certain day and you're wrong for a handful of contributions that you collected it could cost you the entire funding stream. So I would just like to have an opportunity for this council to take a look at that paperwork. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Councilor Dey. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem. I would second that mostly because I've never had had the good fortune of running as a clean elections candidate and it does sound intense. I appreciate Councilor Chavarro's leadership on educating me on this. I do have one question and maybe this could be something that we have for when we do have this as the first read. I made a note about just a little more information about the affidavit process for the seed money. Is that congruent with the Charter's intent for candidacy? Does that I'm just curious if that violates the Charter or if it or if it doesn't just want to be clear because I know it has to be X number of days before and I'm just when I hear affidavit I think that's official. So that's the only thing that I would just want a little clarification on making sure we're not being ambiguous with that. And then overall I think the good news about this is however we land on this when the time comes to vote is I have an expectation that a year from now there are going to be tweaks. We're going to be we're going to be dialing this in a little bit further. So I just I really appreciate the amount of work that's gone into it to get us to this point so far. So thank you. Thank you Councilor. I also have a question. I don't know whether it's a Confucian Council or EU. Is it possible to amend that form to make it simple? And if yes, who will do it? So there are no forms yet. The ordinance contemplates forms to be in essence created by the city clerk's office for that declaration of intent. The affidavit is part of Councilor Travaro so we haven't talked that out thoroughly. And then the qualifying contribution forms I think the intent was to mimic similar to the state but the city is drafting its own ordinance here. So I think there's some necessity to make sure that you can track the money and make sure that you can make qualify and know who contributed into your your point Councilor Dion. When we were sort of gaming this out originally we kind of assumed that candidates would want to take out their nominating papers and their qualifying contribution papers at the same time and try to do double duties, qualifying for the ballot and getting their signatures. The difference with the state is they've got a primary season that we don't have here. So there's a loss of some efficiency there because if you get the papers early you may have to go and knock on the same door which is great because it's going to be more voter interaction but it's less efficient in terms of signature collecting and qualifying contribution collection but the forms are mostly supposed to be drafted by the city clerk's office. This is the city's ordinance and I think we can have some flexibility there as long as tracking it is doable and certifying it is doable by the city clerk's office. Thank you. And I was as I mentioned talking to the clerk's office I know they they're sort of like playing around with draft forms that are based on the state forms. I think that it's it's not necessarily like the simplicity of the form itself but just that there are so many things to sign when you're at the the person's door so if you're you know asking for them to write a check and then to accompany that check you have to have them sign a form that they are contributing from their personal funds and then in addition to that maybe you have your nomination papers with you so you're having them sign as a candidate and so it kind of feels like you're conducting a mortgage mortgage closing you know at the door and it does go slowly and there's an opportunity to maybe forget one of those and then you have to go back and so that's why why it takes so long and it's really for accountability so I don't know that there's like a ton of wiggle room to just not have them sign something but and with regard to the the affidavit question so that as Brandon mentioned has it hasn't been reviewed by our council corporation council yet but I will say that you know we I had help with this because you know obviously we we don't have staff of our own and and so I I spoke with the the clean elections group that provided us with a memo early on as well and they helped me with the first the initial draft so that has been reviewed at least by their attorney and I think it does my sense is that it doesn't play into the timing of the declaration of intent that's sort of a the separate thing that needs but I don't maybe ran it has nothing to do with it we can work with the clerk the other thing I was just realizing while I was sitting here is we took in the ordinance itself it sort of lists out what needs to be the affirmations that need to be in the declaration of intent the affirmations that need to be in we actually did thin some of those out from the state's version so I think for example the name and address of of the contributor's employer we don't have that as a requirement to collect in in our draft ordinance so I guess to to the extent that we've tried to simplify I think we we did but I think we can certainly work with the clerk's office hopefully to have something by the end of the week but I'm not sure I can any of us to do that I think the problem is we're trying to get an ordinance together for you for first read for next week and so to also get the paperwork that goes along with that at the same time might be tough but for the second reading there should be enough time that we could at least get draft papers from the clerk's office here I am committing the city court I'll hear about this later I'm sure but no but I think it wouldn't be possible to do that this week but once we have a draft together for first read I think we can sit down and talk about getting the streamline form so it would make this work thank you as well thank you mayor pro tem I have a question that I think would be for the clerk but considering the clerk is not here I'm going to ask the manager when do you know when is our absolute deadline the last meeting that we can vote on this in the event that there's what's our wiggle room in case we are because it seems like we're coming up to the wire here I think we are and I think it has to do with the timing of everything I know that we looked at that scheduling for a while and we settled on these dates I care and I know it was due to all of the different timelines that we have pending do you guys have any more sort of information on that I remembered that the no there was there was there was some discussion early on that we could fit another workshop in and push everything out it was determined to fit this workshop in now to to avoid and I think that Ashley had indicated you're reminding me Brandon that she had indicated like the May the beginning of May was like the the drop dead date but I would just put out there I mean that you all know we're going to have the budget coming in and there's a lot there's lots going on so I think that was the other consideration here the budget will be easy what are you talking about well thank you I would the reason I was asking that is in in the event obviously being aware of everything that you're working on and if if you know for councillor Diane's request that I think most of us seem to agree with on potential being visible paperwork just being aware of the timeline but obviously understanding that we do have a hard stop at at some point soon thank you if possible councillors open to squeezing another workshop say if possible councillors open to if allowed councillors open to squeezing another workshop if needed councillor I would suggest that perhaps we straw poll one of these proposals that we can take to a first read and then at least we have a structure and then if people want to continue to tweak it we can do that through amendment on the second read and we have that much time what two weeks straw poll let me see by the terms those who think we should go on are we straw pulling whether or not to straw hole are we straw pulling on a particular proposal yeah your rules allow you to straw poll so you don't have to straw poll the straw perhaps I would suggest that we straw poll one of my proposals and I don't know if anybody has a preference on which one um what I mean let's do proposal one yes proposal one okay okay so are we going to do like tom's up tom's down to see those question on the floor okay councillor phillips um I I just want to make sure we're clear and I I'm looking at at everything and so first I want to thank council for putting all this together it's a lot of work um I I do I guess I have my first question is um on all of this we're making the assumption that it's uh there's a big difference between running for council at large and school board at large um I've I've never done either so I'm just wondering isn't it the same work to have somebody run at large whether you're running at large for school board or you're running at large for city council it's still seat so I guess that's some fresh question and I don't know if any of us can answer it um same thing as a district council and a school board district like so I guess the reason I'm asking that question is because we're all over the map on how much the seed money is how much the contributing or qualifying things that we need and for me I would just keep the council at large and the school board at large the same and keep the council district and the school district the same um because to me they they're the same seat it's just one's at the school and one's at the city but I certainly welcome um questions about that um and so the other thing is is that I'm in looking at that um given what council Travara said as far as qualifying contributions I don't think we should make this hard around folks especially if you have this experience and you said you only got two qualifying candidates in an hour um that we do keep it as lower not as low as we can but in your proposal number one it's at 200 versus um the second proposal which is at 300 and um the attorney's proposal at 500 um so and then sorry there's a lot of what I'm trying to say um and then um I'm also not sure if and I don't know if a mayor needs $120,000 so I guess those are my three questions again I don't know if anybody can answer them who will be answering the question I think Hannah I mean I can just kind of take a stab my rationale um there the numbers in these proposals are based on actual campaign data from the last several seasons and um I think that when you look at the total numbers like you look at 120,000 for mayor it's it's jarring like that's a that's a lot of money um we have we have talked in this these workshops about um hoping to use this program to um reduce overall spending in campaigns and I think it's important to note that the primary reason for these programs is to reduce private influence in campaigns not necessarily overall spending but um in my mind the way that they can potentially reduce overall spending is through maximum participation and um to get maximum participation we have to strike that right number that candidates look at it and say that's going to work for me and opt into it um so how do we find that right number to me the best place to look is the actual data and the campaigns that that we have been that have have been successful over the last few years so um I think and that's partially also why the rounds of funding are appealing to me too because um you know they may or may not reach that in the end um so that's my assessment I I know I I have had some preliminary conversations with um some of the counselors about these and um one piece of feedback that I I got was uh will to kind of um maybe population base these numbers as opposed to um you know so that all the at large um you know whether it's school board or council theoretically that should be the same size campaign because it's the um same size population um I think that that's a that's something to consider um whether to go that route versus actual database um but my sense is that we should probably like pick the structure first and then we have a couple weeks to make amendments if we want to just my two cents thank you councilor I think uh I just I just want to turn something um so the proposal you put forward councilor Travara would be for a total of 500,000 in the budget is that is that correct yes oh man okay I just wanted to make sure I understood that because that almost doubles what we were looking at for the budget I just want to make sure people understand that um what we had recommended from the charter commission was about 290,000 I think what was in the proposal from Perkins Thompson was 260,000 um and I just want to put that on everybody's radar as I'm compiling the budget and as we talked about during the budget workshop I mean um you know and everybody around the dais talked about a five to seven percent increase this is one of those additional expenses that we we'd be looking at and something that I don't have currently on the radar screen so I just want to put that out there make sure I understood understood that I am I hate to be the bearer of that news for you um I you know and I I consider that too as we're um looking at these proposals and my feeling at the end of the day is just that this is uh this is an obligation that we have and you know there's um language in the in the charter amendment that was adopted saying that we um we need to have these be I forget the exact words but you know um that they be fully funded or that they be um reasonable amount so um you know this this was one uh charter amendment that was adopted out of several that were proposed at the last election and it passed with 70 over 70 percent of the vote so I feel like this is kind of a known mandate from from the voters thank you uh Chancellor Rodriguez and then Chancellor Daya thank you um I think I was gonna I guess I'll jump right where we left off if if it's helpful or constructive um can we can we try to have um those conversations somewhat separately like maybe figure out the the numbers um like let's plant the flag on that right now and let's just focus on the model itself that's being presented in the proposals and that's what I want to speak of right now so that because the numbers I think there's a lot of considerations that we need to have that don't necessarily change the model that's being proposed I personally would like to speak I'm getting ahead of that Paul I personally would like to speak in favor of proposal one um except that um I would which in essence what I'm about to say makes a proposal too um I would like to see three additional disbursements uh instead of the four that proposal two has um I guess the gist of it is that the reason I like proposal one is because the amounts the initial disbursement amounts were smaller and my thinking about that is that we can have a discussion about the supplemental amounts being smaller so then that total amount shrinks we get closer to that budget goal and then we might also satisfy some of the concerns that have been raised around the dais of that total disbursement amount I like what councillor Travaro said about having multiple additional disbursements doesn't guarantee that a mayoral candidate for example will get 120 let's say they get their initial 40k then they do one round or two rounds of the additional disbursements they maxed out at 70k which is the name that um you know uh because you know council of minister quoted me on which of course would make me happy um so again the multiple disbursements aims at that overall goal that some people had or do I agree with council Travaro that the goal is not to reduce the amount of money being spent but to limit like influence of money being spent so um I don't know if that made sense but I'm here advocating for proposal one with three additional disbursements uh worked into it which makes a proposal too ha ha ha I've confused everybody sorry thank you councillor Rodriguez councillor Dayo some of what councillor Rodriguez spoke about I share in his sentiment there are a couple things here if I understand this straw process I will vote in support of proposal one because we have to have a structure and then from the first read we can debate some issues like councillor Phillips may not share my observation but I think the ratio of money and responsibility for signatures as distributed between city candidates and school candidates make sense to me all right and and I'm not prepared tonight to give you a mathematical equation in support of that assertion but I know in my conversations with council Travaro we did wrestle with that in a certain sense and she advanced the idea that this is a data driven decision I don't always like the data but I can't ignore it so I conceded that point to her but the there's also an underlying principle that I think councillor Rodriguez is speaking about but not directly but in my mind it underlies his concerns is we have to wrestle with the idea of sufficiency what constitutes a sufficient amount of monies to wage a rational and reasonable campaign so it has credibility you know and that's a balancing test for us because a certain amount clearly 120,000 might do the job based on history but maybe 75,000 dollars can do it I know the proponents from MCCE you know even litigated the concept of sufficiency of funding from the city so I think that has to be talked about in the open so that there's some consensus among this body as what do we mean when something has been sufficiently subsidized with taxpayer money you know the old adage always applies to he or she who gathers all the money doesn't always win so a lot of money can be a false flag but a budget is a very real piece of math as well um so that that's where I'm at I can support this model as a foundation to our discussions it makes sense I think multiple opportunities for distribution makes sense some candidates may say I can do it with 60,000 dollars I mean how many signs can I buy you know they that's a personal subjective decision and in doing so they limit their draw on municipal funds but we can talk about that but I hope in that conversation we we do get to the question of sufficiency because that's what we're really saying right how come a school board member only gets x a district council gets y that's what we're really talking about behind those questions thank you mayor pro tem thank you councillor down so um councillor travero are you going to take the input from our colleagues and then redraft something and bring it forward or how do you intend to move forward um I mean I'm hearing from councillor Rodriguez that um that he likes the the um qualifying contribution numbers and the distribution amounts in proposal two but the number of no in proposal one but the number of rounds in proposal two um I'm wondering if we could adopt a structure that's based on proposal two um with the intent that I could potentially work with staff to make the numbers closer to proposal one um I just you know I need a calculator um the the the intent of having two proposals was just because I I don't know I just had an inclination that people might favor less rounds it's a little more simplistic but um in doing the math they don't like the total figure is not necessarily divisible by the number of rounds so it will change the figure slightly thank you and um councillor travero are you hoping that we're going to have yours on side by side with the one that councillor is uh Jim and Brandon are bringing forward so my proposal is that we take a straw poll on mine and if if it goes up then that'll be our first read and if it goes down then we take a straw poll on theirs that's fine we came here looking to see what numbers you wanted to put in and uh we we have no ownership in those proposals we just needed to put something in front of the council at that point councillor travero was not in front of the council so you needed something to react to thank you councillor funnier thank you so much um both of these um are great I think for me similar to what my colleagues have said is I would like the lower amount of qualifying contributions as well as the three rounds I think for me that makes sense um and then just playing with the numbers for what those totals are I I think I'm probably a little more aligned um with the city manager just I think maybe 500 is too much but trying to find a happy medium where we could still adequately fund this because I think that is a key component to getting participation is making sure that the money's in there to do this um the right way for those three rounds but maybe finding is there a happier medium between the 260 and the 500 um where we can still do this um but also make it fit uh with the budget work but I I do like the three rounds the lower qualifying contributions um I think that's great okay thank you thank you thank you councillor Rodriguez are you crunching some numbers so that we can no you would probably do that no I was just going to reaffirm um again just my preferences for proposal one with three rounds of disbursements all of the numbers I believe are part of a different conversations but again three additional supplemental funding rounds is what I favor well I think I am going to look at my colleague councillors and see if we are at a good place you know I'm still fasting so if we are at a good place I will encourage us to um figure out how um what is next steps so I would propose that we just um take an upper downstrap hole on just what um councillor Rodriguez said uh proposal one with sorry is a proposal one with three supplemental rounds and um I can I can run the numbers to figure out what that means exactly specifically hybrid one hybrid one hybrid one Rodriguez hybrid one is the manager what are you going to say something I just want to make sure I have it right so it was one with three rounds and lower contribution amounts right contribution amounts to be determined oh to be determined okay but I imagine a lot of these numbers will go down for amendment subject to the second read well I think it's uh we uh um we're getting somewhere we are at a good place to probably adjourn um we just take a strap hole up or down people okay for one with the three yeah one with the three okay and I think I'm also up yeah so okay run to go ahead please just a slight clarifying question to make sure we do this correctly um Tesla for in your memo really you suggest um dropping the probation and then a lot if the fund runs out of money allowing the candidate the clean election candidate to basically raise traditional up to the up to the max of what would be distributed is that correct that is what I put in my memo if the fund runs out um and so we wouldn't do probation so okay well we'll figure that out it may be another form but okay um okay I just want to make sure we understood that it's everything that's in sort of your your memo for now yeah and and it should be clear the timeline too so people are good with the timeline yeah okay um on that note I have a question okay so um if uh a candidate let's say district one two three four a seat is open and uh there's a candidate uh who is a city and counselor um and they have money from previous campaigns and then uh because there was too many people in there's a lot of candidates and they envisioned that uh they might not be enough fund but they still uh sign up for the clean election and then they run out are they allowed and I don't know who answered are they allowed to go back to the money that they have uh from their previous campaign if years do they have to give up that uh money from their previous campaign ahead of time before they sign up or do they wait until to make sure that they are fully funded before they give up that money I think they do but I think Brandon yeah if our original proposal follows state in essence all previous campaign funds have to be sort of dispersed in in one of the legal ways before you can even sort of take out the declaration of intent um I didn't see anything in your memo it's just changing that so I think our goal will be just to change uh the things that are sort of in your memo and then allow the council to to make amendments as needed on the funding numbers and the the other pieces but it would have to be in order to take out that declaration of intent if you have prior campaign funds those have to be dispersed in a proper way up to the seed money so you can give basically yourself a hundred dollars from that the rest of it can be donated to the clean elections fund to help supplement that budget issue but it does have to be dispersed if we if we follow that state rule which is is how it works but that is my understanding until councilor Traverro answered your question that if there's no more fund to disperse a candidate is allowed to go and raise money up to the amount so if just for the benefit of this conversation if I have ten dollars and I have to give up that ten dollars and then I sign up and then there's not enough money and now I have to raise 20 dollars if I keep my 10 dollars I mean you all know that raising money is a lot of work it's as much work as collecting signatures and collecting those uh how do we call it uh uh five dollar checks uh so if I have to give up my 20 my 10 dollars from the beginning and then down the line um I'm short under that 10 dollars and I have to raise 20 dollars that is a lot of work can we right get is just a suggestion can we get uh candidates to if they sign up keep the uh money from the previous at the end of everything they give that back I'm just trying to make sure that we don't go into a situation where somebody give up their money and then you ask them to go back and raise money well I understand the whole idea here is to keep private money out of elections by opting to go clean elections right right so even the idea of going back and raising private money because the fund around runs out is really contrary to what you're trying to do in the first place and that's why the requirement at the state level and what we put in the ordinance here is that you have to get rid of that privately raised money if you're going to go clean elections so uh you can't have it both ways I guess is the issue if you want the spirit of this to be that you want to keep private money out of elections right that's why maybe I understand the concern with proration but at least it ensures everybody gets some level of public funding for their campaigns instead of suddenly saying hey I'm sorry there's not enough money for you you were the last to file and you got to go raise your money privately now which goes against the whole program it's just a thought no thank you um I'm wondering have we modeled how many people it would take to actually run out of money so for this first year given the numbers that we've been presented do we have an idea and I know it's hard because you have the rounds and there's a lot of variables but is there like if we have 20 people run are we out of money if we have 10 people run are we out of money so I tried I did not game consular travaros proposal I kind of gamed out um our three proposals with sort of and I didn't bring with me because it was so many uh alternates with one sort of with three mayoral candidates with two at large one district and then one school board so um there was one model with the higher small our model with the higher seed money if you had those as constant and who knows how many people we got tonight with the $260,000 contribution because of the higher supplement from the seed money we got to about 98% funded um I did not for I think eight total candidates at the different that's also in in cooperating higher higher qualifying contributions because that helps supplement the fund and um the higher um or the higher qualifying contributions the higher seed money uh and the lower disbursement so it's not the 120 it was that $75,000 number so I have a spreadsheet that I'm happy to try to to game things out but without knowing how qualified and how many candidates you have um it's really hard to do sure and the reason I asked is just as we're thinking about the you know the whole idea of this again is to keep private money out to make this more accessible so I think there is also the reality that not everybody is going to take advantage of this program others might just choose to privately fund um or do traditional funding and that's fine I think if just thinking of if we have 10 people running in the various offices it's likely that this program would be able to do 98% funding um is sort of where we're very very loosely increasing that seed money especially helped I mean it ended up with three mayoral candidates if you had it at 10,000 instead of five that's $30,000 total that's sort of underlying supplementing perfect thank you that's such a bro I would just note um this year it's going to cost more because it's a mayoral year so it's not going to be that much every year but um you know my sort of my intent is um to just I would rather budget more than we end up meeting and incur savings then um have to you know run into that last resort of of candidates having to go private because I think that it's you know ultimately unfair to the candidates Chancellor Chancellor Travero thank you for saying that because as uh Tony Jim said uh if the spirit of this is to take um private money out of our democratic process then nobody should go and have to raise money or keep their money and then as I said earlier so thank you um do we know and I think uh city manager I'm going to look at you because you may be the only one that was here when there was the uh the open mayoral seat how many people contested that was uh the first one because that's the only time that we have an open seat yeah that's we're going to have this the first year we had an elected mayor I think my recollection is there was 10 candidates but that's a little that's a little dusty but I think I remember there being a lot quite a few not to say that all of those candidates obviously would want to qualify for this fund but I do remember there being quite a few so is it possible to say uh that uh and then the second one had two and two and three yeah they have gone down um I don't know what that says about us so last last year was three but yeah I'm not going to comment on that but the candidate full has definitely has definitely gone down since that time yeah I want to make a data inform how do we call it a decision um following your footsteps I I think uh maybe we can take the average of that in the past three years um we had a 10 two and three that is uh 15 you divide that by three councilor Rodriguez is your calculator oh that's five so we can we can budget for going with the days when data will be flying in this chamber today we now have that data passing so maybe we can make five uh budget on five uh mayor candidates and then figure out the rest the other seats that will be opened this year this is a suggestion are you talking mayor pro tell me about gaming at all for five candidates yes I mean presumed that if because cancelophonia was asking the budget numbers like how many how many is uh how many candidates was uh the numbers that we landed on and this I was saying that uh I I have the spreadsheet that I can try to plug in uh with councilors boroughs based on five mayoral and a few you know of the other other seats um I just picked random so I didn't actually look I knew we had a I think we actually have two districts potential two districts this year and an at large so I didn't do I didn't do exactly this year's gaming to be but I was just doing something that's a random just to see but I can certainly take five and and actually plug in won't take that much work the unknowns are is it 500 is it 260 um and then for the 500,000 or how many qualify so if I take it off of her proposal um as the straw pole we can I can at least have that I don't think it'll take me too too long to at least it's going to be ugly I hope you like excel but um I can certainly do that thank you councilor Rodriguez I'm sorry I was just I have two things on this um that we're discussing right now and we can just go back the last 10 years which includes two mayoral elections and look at the average amount of candidates that have qualified for the ballot I think that'd be probably a good starting point for us to look at you know potential averages 10 years I think should give us enough because again it has two mayoral elections there um I have a question and I'm sorry that we discussed this and I just wasn't it wasn't where I was um focusing on um on the five dollar contributions that are collected um let's say a potential candidate starts to collect them at some point you know they've sent them to the city at some point they decide to go traditional um what happens to that money that was sent to the city that's just revenue for the city the candidate has no obligation to it so there's there's sort of two pools where you get your seed money yeah which presumably under the ordinance it goes into the separate you could keep any qualifying those five dollar contributions are in essence the funds at least how as it's proposed so if you collect them under our current proposal you decide not to go clean those five dollar contributions go into the fund um you would be able to retain seed money um that becomes and again with the editing here that may become less of a issue um in that we're not doing the proration so the only reason that somebody sort of backs out of the out of that declaration of intent was because of the proration piece if we're getting rid of that proration once you sort of sign your declaration of intent and the potential new affidavit you're I think you're you're going to be in similar to the state system um but so I'm not sure it becomes as big of an issue um okay I think I guess I was envisioning again just a candidate for whatever reason dropped or not wanting to be part of clean elections after those five dollar contributions have already been you know given to the city checks cash been cleared um I wanted I just wanted to know about those five dollar in regards to the candidates there's no obligation there yeah it's the same fund that's all I'd I'd probably be more in that sort of towards the end of the ordinance the sort of death withdrawal um section as opposed to that probation and to make that clean clear then maybe you want to have those checks payable to the city to the fund rather than to the candidate who would write a check to the fund we I know you've gone back and forth on that but yeah and and we could put that in the consensus document yeah I think I and I said this last time I think um the five dollar contribution should always be ran out to the city seat money to the candidate and that's the way that you both financially uh and in your books keep that separate um and and I I'm perfectly fine that yeah I totally agree that you know to the candidate that collecting the five dollar contributions so it goes to the city that money is said and done you decide to not take clean elections you know thank you for contributing to the fund good luck in your election so I'm perfectly fine with that thank you thank you that's the day honestly all right well it seems I'm trying maybe that time is a charm it seems like we are to a place to to wrap up unless uh someone have something else that you want us to discuss Brandon are we Jim and Brandon are we are we good to go the question was whether you want to adopt those same percentages of foreign ownership 1% and 5% for a business entity that's substantially influenced by a foreign owner and like I say Seattle has gone with the 1% for a single investor who's foreign owned and 5% for two or more and if you want to adopt those subject to all caveats that I've announced before I don't want to go through them again uh those are the numbers in in Seattle and San Diego has going in that same direction are we talking about foreign corporations about this yeah we're talking about the campaign finance rep part because everyone's focused on clean elections that was part of that but there was another part of the question too that talked about campaign finance and adopting the same thing with as the state has saying that no business entity can contribute to a candidate and also that foreign and the business entities that are substantially controlled by a foreign investor can't contribute to ballot questions or as we know it initiative or referendum and so that's part of it and so the question is what is a foreign entity that is substantially controlled by a what's an entity controlled by a foreign investor is it someone who owns uh you know a foreign investor that owns 1% of that entity or two or more foreign investors who own 5% of that entity those are the numbers Seattle uses in its wordness which was used as a basis for this whole provision and so you know we'll plug those in if that's what you want to do and you can respond to them in uh an amendment if you wish if that sounds fine. Chancellor Dayan. Jim well just for the record for people listening when you say foreign you're talking Canadian Mexican European not not Rhode Island. Well that's an interesting question because the Charter Commission I posed that to the Charter Commission as we were going through saying you know if you're talking about state of incorporation Delaware's foreign corporation I don't think you're talking about the Delaware investor and they aren't I mean they are looking at foreign as in another nation that's not defined in the Charter I think it's how we're defining it for your ordinance so that we try to limit the repercussions we're talking about someone from another nation investing uh in a campaign basically saying that some I'm not going to be. No no yeah well let me ask you okay just a foreign corporation is a term of art so now we're saying we're going to define that we're defining the assumption it's extra national correct okay so we're saying that another's proposal that if someone owns two percent of that business entity they should be barred from making an investment is that what are we saying with that that's what we're saying two percent one percent if a single foreign investor owns part of that entity five percent of two or more foreign investors and again this comes from the Seattle ordinance and it was the Seattle ordinance that was used by uh main clean elections and what they were proposing to the Charter Commission and what the Charter Commission looked at and that's that's a pretty minimal ownership position I understand the position was that the SEC was looking at it as being foreign investment at that level I don't know I've never independently researched it I'm just telling you what I read thank you thank you thank you is your hand up so um what percentage two counselors feel comfortable with five are you you're good with the one one two five okay are we all on the same page all right I'm seeing speed it out counselor there you go I'll go along with it I'm just I'll go along with it I won't bore you with the wrestling match going inside my head thank you counselor dial um demon Brandon are we down I think we're I think we're done as far as we we have our marching orders and we know what we need to do to get a draft in here for first read next week question I have is once we get the first read done what is the amendment process look like how do you want us involved do you want us involved who's going to draft those amendments because ultimately we'd want to make sure that those amendments actually work I see that michael goldman is going to prompt you there is hand this there it goes okay there he is hi michael we we can't hear you we have to uh open this okay good evening can you hear me now yes okay good sorry um yeah no uh thank you both for um for your presentation tonight you guys have done a lot of work and I really appreciate it certainly helping out my office quite a bit um I think for um for purposes of amendments I mean I think it would be be great to have you involved as we move through the through the process um you know both of you I've I've um read through the the ordinances that you've drafted and you know weighed in a bit with some minor suggestions but um but I think as we go through the process your intimate knowledge of the uh of the provisions will be helpful um probably as we go through the the process of getting it approved at the meeting so having you there for the um for the second read I think will be will be helpful so if counselors have into you know individual amendments should they send them to both uh corporation council and to us that we can be ready on that second read yeah they can do that or they can forward them to me and I can pass them right on to you um which is that's fine with me as well fair enough thank you we just wanted to make sure we knew how to proceed thanks yeah thank you you bet you and thank you for your estimate thank you michael you bet councillor you look like you want to say something I don't okay thank you all right it seems like thank you uh thank you everybody I the meeting I'm gonna join the meeting so that it doesn't look like there's anything else oh no it's not a it's not a no you want to see me do it okay all right